Senator Tom Harkin
D-Iowa
By Elaine Magliaro
This just in…
Shahien Nasiripour (Huffington Post) reported this morning that outgoing Democratic Senator Tom Harkin from Iowa “wants to take federal money from low-income college students to pay student loan contractors, whose tactics toward borrowers have been criticized by consumer advocates, federal regulators and the U.S. Department of the Treasury.”
According to Nasiripour, Harkin, who is chairman of the Senate education committee and the appropriations subcommittee in charge of federal education expenditures, “has proposed taking $303 million from the Pell grant program to increase revenues for some of the nation’s biggest student loan specialists, according to a July 24 version of a 2015 fiscal year spending bill now being negotiated by congressional leaders.” Nasiripour said that student advocates and congressional aides “largely missed Harkin’s move last summer — partly because the full text of the spending bill wasn’t publicly released until six weeks after Harkin’s subcommittee approved it.” He added that it was only noticed “in recent days as congressional negotiators work off his bill in the rush to finalize discussions on the federal government’s 2015 spending plans.”
Click here to read the full text of Nasiripour’s HuffPo article titled Tom Harkin Wants To Take Money From College Students To Pay Reviled Loan Contractors.
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So who is Harkin paying off, or who is he going to now work for? This is why the Democratic Party is in such bad shape, when one of its “Liberal Icons” is shown to merely be a corporatist below the patina of seeming to care about the people.
Mike,
“So who is Harkin paying off, or who is he going to now work for?”
Exactly!
Elaine,
What makes it so damned disheartening is that this stuff happens all the time as we see a revolving door between government and industries those government workers have catered to.
God damn … these thieves never stop! What’s he got to lose? He’s leaving office and it’s all perfectly legal.
I checked his lifetime campaign donors’ list and University of Iowa/Goldman Sachs appear to be numbers 2 and 3.
By the way…guess where Ashcroft is now….
Blackwater..renamed “Xe” now Academi”
Academi is owned by Red McCombs
Who founded Clear Channel
If someone would have the decency to start a Goldman Sachs thread on nolle prosequi of G Sachs
then everyone can see the REAL deal
Mike n Blouise
It hapoens..All the time…
Because no one cares how much material adverse harm they do
Until it happens directly to you
Then you are on my side of the fence
Where no one else cares
Sickening. Harkin and who else? I always hated it when I thought there were false equivalencies given to Dems when it came to Republicans. As it turns out, they may not have been false after all in some cases. Our government, sold to the highest bidder.
“I always hated it when I thought there were false equivalencies given to Dems when it came to Republicans. As it turns out, they may not have been false after all in some cases.”
Inga,
Unfortunately all too true.
Stop acting so surprised, just read a little history – the reformers always end up needing to be reformed. The bottom feeders today shall be the top feeders tomorrow
Very digusting…..